


Gonna Be Somebody

by pikabot



Category: Unsounded
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Gen, Minor Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 03:05:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3311564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikabot/pseuds/pikabot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifteen-year-old Ephsephin dreams of a better life, of being a bigshot on the streets of Hanghorse, but doesn't have the money to make that dream a reality. When a pair of crooked cops offer him a job with a big payout, he has to make a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gonna Be Somebody

**Author's Note:**

> This is an edited version of my entry into the first official fanfiction contest.

The first sensation he felt was the pain in his stomach. Still half-asleep, he thought for a moment that it was hunger come to stick its knife back in him, but that wasn't it. It was too sharp, too sudden for that, and it drove the breath from his lungs. Before he could identify it, though, the second kick connected with his ribs, sending him screaming into the land of the waking.

He cried out and curled up automatically, trying to protect himself from further blows, but that just meant that the next two kicks landed in the vicinity of his kidneys. It was not really an improvement.

“Oi, Shanks!” his assailant called out to his partner, “I think he's awake!”

“'Bout time,” the other man said, and the boy immediately understood what had happened. The coppers wanted something with him.

Constable Hooker, a portly son-of-a-bitch with sweetleaf stains around his mouth, rolled him over so he was facing directly into the sunlight. It must have been almost noon already, for the sun was right above him, framed by the walls of the narrow alley he'd collapsed in the night before. The sunlight was blocked out only by the silhouette of Constable Ham Shanks, who was crouching over him.

“You look like shit, Ephy,” Shanks said, smiling down at him. Despite his name, he was skinnier than his partner. Handsomer, too. “For all your name's a strange one, you do your best to live up to it. Who was it did this to you? Hang-Me-Low's lot again?”

Ephsephin sat up slowly. His whole body hurt, and not just from the rude awakening. It had, indeed, been Hang-Me-Low and her gang. She'd caught him selling his goods too close to her turf, and she'd made him pay for it. He could feel bruising on every inch of his body.

“What's it matter t'you?” he asked, wincing. “You gonna arrest 'em for me?”

The two officers looked at each other for a moment, and then burst into laughter. Hooker's laugh was deep and booming, while Shanks's had an unpleasant rasp to it. “Nah, kid, we don't give two shits,” Shanks said while Hooker caught his breath. “Just makin' conversation, all polite-like. We  _ do _ need a favor, though.”

Ephsephin knew what they meant by  _ that _ . All cops were crooked in Hanghorse, but these two were damn near the worst of them all. The badge was a license to bully, and to run a protection racket even the Frummagems didn't dare break, for fear of motivating the other coppers into doing their jobs.

“I don't work for free,” Ephsephin said, wiping the street off his mouth. “You got the coin?”

Hooker's fist lashed out, catching him across the jaw, and Ephsephin tasted blood. “Don't give us your lip, boy,” Hooker said, his voice suddenly gravelly. “You'll get your share, sure enough. We don't need reminding.”

“Steady on, Hooks,” Shanks said. “Don't need him any uglier than he already is. You still workin' the docks, kid?”

Ephsephin managed, barely, to nod his head without seeing stars.

“Good,” Shanks said. “There's a shipment coming in tonight, full of First Iron. Bound for Beadman's factory, but we reckon we could put it to better use. All we need is someone to let us in, then hold the door while we move it. Whaddaya say?”

“I dunno, mates,” Ephsephin said, pausing to spit blood onto the cobbles. “I need that job, and those Beadman fuckers scare me. Maybe I don't want to stick my dick into that wasp's nest.”

Hooker glowered, and for a moment Ephsephin was sure he was going to hit him again, but Shanks calmed him with a gesture. Shanks turned back to him, and laid an almost paternal hand on his shoulder. “Hey, don't sweat. I've already bribed the watchman, he'll be off on the other side of the building, contemplating the wall. The Beadmans won't never know who hit 'em. And think of what you could do with all that sem. Maybe you could give it to that Ma of yours, so she can pay us what we're due. Maybe we won't have to come around for another visit.”

Ephsephin was off the ground before he even knew what he was doing, his vision full of pulsating red. He threw himself at the officers, but it only took them a few moments to wrestle his underfed fifteen-year-old frame to the ground again.

“I'd break your arm, if I didn't think I might need it,” Hooker said, taking his knee off Ephsephin's back. “Tonight. Think about it.”

And then the coppers released him and strode off down the alley together, laughing. Ephsephin knelt, catching his breath and wiping away tears of pain, for several minutes before he felt strong enough to get to his feet and drag himself home.

 

* * *

 

Ephsephin couldn't read much more than his name, but he'd been told that the decrepit sign over the entrance to his home had read  _ Victori Marabeth's Home For Lost Children _ before time and vandalism had wiped out half its letters. Now and then he thought about fixing it up, but he couldn't spare the time. The sign was in only slightly worse shape than the rest of the building; the roof leaked, half the walls were nearly rotted through, and you couldn't take your shoes off for fear of getting stuck by a rusty nail. If he was going to spend time doing repairs, there were better places to start.

_ I'm gettin' too old for this dump _ , he thought as he passed over the threshold. He'd have to leave in another year, anyway. The local shrine would only pay his way until he was sixteen years old. The amount they paid was a pittance, barely covered the cost of food, but even that would be gone soon enough. Frankly, most orphanage kids ran off or vanished long before that point, but Ephsephin had seen how runaways turned out: turning tricks from old men down by the harbor, or turning up at the bottom of the river. Sometimes both. But that wasn't for him. He was gonna be somebody, some day, a boss to rival all the other bosses in the city. That was why he was taking advantage of the shrine's hospitality for as long as he could, even though he already had a pretty decent job. It meant he could save what he earned.

The moment he pushed the doors open, he was struck by a roar of sound and energy, as mighty as it was familiar: children crying, children play, children fighting. Most orphanages insisted on quiet and discipline, but Victori Marabeth's didn't have the manpower to enforce any such thing. Apart from mealtimes, bedtime, and irregularly scheduled and attended classes, the children were mostly left to their own devices. Ephsephin was almost immediately bombareded with greetings and questions:

“Eph!” That was Boots, a boy of around eight, whose mother had left him on the doorstep as an infant.

“Ethsefin!” That was Emma, a Crescian girl who was probably about five – nobody was sure exactly. Her lisp had been made worse last week when she'd lost one of her front teeth, but she'd never had much luck saying his name. Ephsephin ruffled her hair affectionately as he passed her.

“Cor, what happened to your face?”

“You step in front of a cart again?”

Those were Tackle and Winch, brothers of around eleven years. Their mother'd died giving birth to them, and their father'd popped off about five years ago while working at the Beadman's factory.

“I wish,” Ephsephin responded, wincing as one of them slapping him on the back. “picked a fight with the wrong group of bastards. I'll get'em back, though, you just watch.”

“Ma kept us all up worryin' last night.” That was Sangwen, one of the older girls. Thirteen years old and starting to come into her tits. Ephsephin'd already had to rough a bloke up for getting fresh with her, and he was sure it wouldn't be the last time. “You wanna go fuck off on your own, I don't give a shit. But have the decency to let us get a decent night's.”

“Sorry, San,” he said, bitter sarcasm laced into his words. “I'll make sure to send a courier, next time I get jumped in a black alley.”

He'd hoped that that would be enough to deflect her, but she kept following him. “Mebbe you oughta walk down fewer alleys. Mebbe you oughta learn to keep outta trouble. Or maybe you oughta just leave, so Ma don't have to trouble herself with your stupid arse no more.”

“I'll leave when I'm good and ready. And it ain't none of Ma's business what I get up to in me own time. I got a life of me own, and a...”

He trailed off as he slowly came to a stop in front of a boy. Couldn't be any older than eight, with the brightest red hair Ephsephin'd ever seen. The colour wasn't what stopped him, though. What stopped him in his tracks was this: he knew every boy and girl in Victori Marabeth's. He knew their names, he knew their faces, he knew their stories. He'd wiped half of their arses at one point or another. But he didn't know this kid.

“Who's this?” he asked.

Sangwen groaned “Oh, Twins, Eph,  _ don't _ ...”

“Is he new?”

“I tried to tell her, I really did...”

“ Is this little pustule  _ new _ ?” he roared, and then picked the lad up by his shirtfront to look him straight in the eye. “What's your name, you?”

The boy looked like he was about to shit himself. “M-Mortimer, sir,” he managed to get out. His voice was so quiet Ephsephin could barely hear him. “Missus Aldwin said I could stay here...”

“Oh, she did, did she?” Eph dropped him, but only for a moment; he grabbed him by the back of his shirt instead, hauled him up into the air, and then went charging up the stairs with him in tow. “Ma!” he shouted as he brushed past groups of children, studiously ignoring Sangwen, who was shouting at him to stop and leave well enough alone. “Ma, we gotta talk!”

He threw open the kitchen door, and then there she was: grey-haired and overweight, her face covered with thin lines. Sister Jessa Aldwin; the closest thing to a mother he'd ever had.

“Shush your hollering,” she said without looking up from the potato she was expertly peeling.

Ephsephin lugged Mortimer forward, holding him out in front of him. He dropped him ungently to the ground between them.

“What the hell's this?” he demanded.

She looked up briefly, then looked back down. “That's Mortimer. He's staying with us now, and I'll thank you to stop frightening him.”

“ _ Why _ .”

“Because he has nowhere else to go, and we couldn't very well turn him away.”

“Yeah, you could!” Ephsephin said. “We've talked about this, Ma. You can't afford another mouth to feed! An' where's he even gonna sleep? We're short two beds as it is–”

The knife hit the counter. She walked around it, and struck him across his already-bruised face with a  _ crack _ that silenced all dissension. He stood stock still, stunned; she hadn't laid a hand on him in years.

“ We will not turn away a child in need so long as I'm in change here,” she said, pointing a finger directly into his face. “I couldn't afford to take you in either, when you were left on my doorstep, but that didn't stop me. Do you think I should have turned  _ you _ out into the cold? Hmm?”

Ephsephin's face burned from more than the slap. Nobody could make him feel ashamed quite like she could. “No, Ma, but...how're you gonna  _ feed _ him?”

“He'll share a bed with Chrissy, they're both small enough. The shrine will give us what they can. And as for the rest...well, Yerta will just have to provide. She always has.” She looked away for a moment, gazing reverently at the image of Yerta she kept hung on her kitchen wall.

Ephesphin groaned with exasperation, but he knew he was defeated. Sister Jessa walked back around the counter and picked her knife up again.

“Now,” she said, returning to the potato. “Why don't you come around here and help me get the pot on. And you can tell me all about what you've been up to, to come home looking like that.”

He groaned again, for a very different reason. He was not going to enjoy this conversation.

 

* * *

 

The orphans lined up, single file, and Ephsephin served up what passed for supper: a thin potato gruel with a crust of bread. It was an orphanage staple. Every now and then a windfall would come their way, and they would get to taste a hunk of real meat, but otherwise it was gruel and bread, year in and year out. It wasn't a great meal, but potatoes were cheap, and healthy, and they would keep all winter. Ephsephin'd eaten it so many times his mouth barely even registered it as food anymore.

The bench creaked under his weight as he dropped himself down on it, but nobody paid the sound any mind. The bench was going to break soon, and need replacing, but there was no sense in worrying about it. Just like there was no sense worrying about the mice in the walls, or the way the building leaked all the way to the basement when it rained. Why worry about something you can't do anything about?

The gruel tasted even thinner than usual; one more mouth to feed with the same number of potatoes, he supposed. Even if the shrine chipped in for the new kid, that money'd have to go to other things: blankets, clothes, patching up the roof so it wouldn't cave in on some cold winter night. They'd eat worse now so they could make it through the winter without freezing.

Ephsephin caught himself thinking of all the things they could fix if they could just get hold of some money, and he stopped himself.  _ Why do you care? _ he asked, annoyed with his own softness.  _ You're gone in a year, and then you'll be makin' your own way. These brats ain't your business, no matter what Ma thinks. _

Just suffer through another year, make a clean exit with whatever he'd been able to save. Easiest thing in the world. Maybe later, when he'd made it big and had cash to spare, he could come back, fix the place up, be a hero, but not now.

But...the watery stew – a drink, really – and the rock-hard crust sat as poorly in his stomach as it did in theirs. And he  _ knew _ where he could get money.

“What the hell,” he said out loud.

 

* * *

 

Hanging back at the end of the workday was easier than he would have expected. After eight hours of crushing work, his battered arms screaming in protest the whole time, he just folded himself behind a stack of crates and waited. The night watchman was supposed to do a sweep, make sure everybody was out of the building before locking up, but Shanks's bribe must have taken, because Ephsephin was left alone in the cool dark of the warehouse floor as the building emptied out.

When he heard the iron doors slam shut, and the last set of footsteps had long faded, Ephsephin climbed out of his hiding spot. By night, the warehouse looked completely different; lit only by moonlight and a few lambence lanterns strung haphazardly from the rafters, its familiar corridors transformed into a maze of deep shadows. Where a rack or crate blocked out the meagre light, he could barely see two feet in front of him. If Ephsephin didn't already know the place backwards and forwards, he doubted he would be able to find his way out, much less find the Beadman shipment.

The silence was broken by the sound of a metal banging against metal, echoing through the darkened building.  _ Shanks and Hooker _ , Ephsephin thought. They were here earlier than he'd thought. They must be impatient to get their big score.

Ephsephin pulled himself towards the sound, feeling his way through the dark until he made it to the side door. The knocking got all the louder and more insistent as he did, until it was a relentless hammering. After a few moments of fumbling, he threw the bolt aside and swung the door open. A crowbar swung through the suddenly open space.

“I told you he was solid, Hooks,” Shanks said. “Our Ephy wouldn't leave us out in the cold, now would he?”

“I might still,” Ephsephin said, obstructing the entrance with his body, “if I don't see some sem.”

“Of course,” Shanks said, reaching into his tunic and removing a small pouch, attached to a leather cord around his neck. He shook it, and it made the characteristic jingling noise of metal coins colliding against one another. When Ephsephin reached out to take it, however, Shanks pulled it back. “After,” he said. “I need to get my money's worth first.”

Ephsephin reluctantly stepped aside. “Mind your step,” he muttered as he closed the door behind them, returning the warehouse to a nearly pitch black state.

“Cor, it's black in here,” Hooker said, squinting as his eyes tried to adjust. “How the hell're we meant to find anything like this?”

“You won't,” Ephsephin promised. “But I can. I made a note of where they stacked the Beadman's shipment.”

“There you go,” Shanks said with a laugh as the two of them began following Ephsephin into the twisted corridors of the warehouse. “I told you bringing the boy in was a good idea, didn't I?”

“Aye, you did,” Hooker said. “You said the same for that bloke last week, too, and look how that turned out.”

“Water under the bridge, friend. Ephsephin here knows where his bread's buttered, don't he?”

Ephsephin shuffled forward into the darkness, checking over his shoulder every few seconds to be sure he hadn't lost either of them. After a few minute's walk, he stopped at the end of the row. “This is them,” he said, knocking on the wooden create for emphasis.

Hooker wedged the end of his crowbar under the crate's lid, and applied his considerable weight to it. The wood cracked, strained, and then gave way. The lid was dumped ceremoniously on the ground, and the crate's contents glimmered dully in the lambence-light. The First Iron had been melted down into cylindrical rods, about an inch across, for ease of transport, and each was pristine, without a single visible impurity.

Hooker removed a rod from the crate, hefting it and balancing its weight in one hand. A smile cracked the surface of his face, his unnaturally white teeth glimmering in the meagre light. “This is the stuff, all right. This is gonna make us–”

His sentence collapsed into a wet choking sound, followed by frantic wheezing. The First Iron rod dropped to the stone floor. Hooker's eyes bulged, his mouth moved soundlessly, and he clawed fearfully at his own throat. After a few seconds he keeled forward to the ground, blood gushing from the crossbow bolt protruding from his neck.

“ Twins!” Shanks swore, stumbling backwards, away from his partner's corpse. That involuntary motion saved his life, as three more bolts, fired from the shadows above. Suddenly, the air was alive with the  _ twang _ of crossbow strings releasing, the whistling sound as lethal bolts flew by, and a metallic noise as they collided with the ground or wall.

Ephsephin dove out of the line of fire. He fell down behind the crate stack, hands over his head, face pressed against the ground, praying to whoever was listening that he wouldn't catch a stray shot. The warehouse's interior was so dark, who knew where they were shooting from, or what they were aiming at.

He yelped as a hand clapped around his ankle. He rolled over quickly, holding up his hands in surrender. “Don't kill me, don't kill me!” he shouted, only realizing a moment later that the hand belonged to Shanks, not one of the crossbowmen.

“I'll kill you all right, you treacherous fuck,” Shanks shouted, grabbing hold of Ephsephin's body and dragging himself foreward. Shanks was bleeding from his ankle, but he didn't need his legs for this. “You backstabbing whoreson, I'll crash you for this!”

“I didn't,” Ephsephin insisted, but Shanks was too mad or too dumb to hear. The air was still full of the sound of crossbows firing as Shanks pulled a knife out of his boot and brought it down, stabbing deep into Ephsephin's arm.

The arm exploded with pain and blood, and Ephsephin struck out instinctively, flailing at his attacker. The knife went skittering away into the darkness. Any relief Ephsephin might have felt was shortlived, though, as Shanks' hands closed around his throat. He tried to push him away, break the grip around his throat, but Shanks was stronger than him, and his vision quickly began to blur. Desperate, he threw his hands out, looking for something, anything, to help save his life, and he was rewarded with the feeling of cold metal against his palm. Hooker's crowbar.

Blood exploded from Shanks' forehead as Ephsephin caught him with a swing, and his deathgrip on Ephsephin's throat loosened. Gasping as air began flowing into his lungs again, Ephsephin threw himself forward, with only one thing in mind:  _ I gotta kill this fucker before he kills me _ .

He swung the crowbar, and Shanks raised his hands to defend against it. Too late. The metal bar crushed his nose with an awful sound, and he let out a shriek of pain. Ephsephin swung the crowbar again, catching Shanks around the crown of the head. He hit again, and again, each blow kicking up blood and skin and bits of bone. By the fifth blow, Shanks's arms had fallen, limp, to his side, but Ephsephin kept hitting until the panic had run out of his veins and he slumped, exhausted, to the floor next to Shanks' body. There was nothing left of Shanks's handsome old face but a bloody pulp.

Ephsephin coughed violently, and then retched, spitting up his dinner onto the ground. He could barely even feel the gash in his arm. Exhausted, shocked, he rested on all fours, catching his breath, until he realized that four or five men were dropping down from above, surrounding him. The crossbowmen.

“Merciful Riv,” one of them swore when they saw had been done to Shanks.

“Kill most definitely confirmed,” another one added.

The leader, nodded silently, and stood over Ephsephin. He waited patiently for a moment, until Ephsephin looked up at him.

“You are the one who called us?”

Ephsephin barely managed a weak nod. “Yeah...that's me,” he said.

The man knelt down and lifted Ephsephin's right hand from off of the ground. His grip was surprisingly gentle. He pressed a pair coin into the hand, and then released it.

“Mister Beadman sends his regards. We'll take care of the rest.”

Ephsephin slowly drew himself to his feet. He looked down at the coin in his hand, and saw a glimmer of gold in the faint light.  _ Two gold sem _ . More money than he'd ever seen in one place. For a moment he thought about going for the bag of coin around Shanks' neck, but he couldn't bring himself to even look at the mess he'd left behind.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, and then staggered away. The cut in his arm was starting to really hurt now, and he pressed one hand over it to control the bleeding.

 

* * *

 

Ephsephin walked down the docks, feeling half-dead. His whole body was still in pain, his arm was white agony, and he was still swimming in nausea. The only thing keeping him walking forward was the feeling of those two gold coins against his palms.  _ This is my ticket _ , he thought.  _ I can use this, get myself set up. Be a big player someday. I shouldn't give anybody any part of this, it's mine and I earned it. _

“Hey, look who it is,” a voice called out from behind him. A familiar voice. Ephsephin froze in his tracks. He hadn't been paying attention to where he was going, and wandered back into her territory...twice in as many nights. He was such an idiot.

Hang-Me-Low approached confidently, flanked by two huge bruisers. He tried to run, but two other members of her gang were waiting behind him, and they dragged him back by the arms.

“You've got a real death wish, love,” she said, smirking, as he was pressed against the wall. “Or maybe you're just thick. Well, you ain't welcome in me territory, and I'll make sure you remember this time.”

Ephsephin clenched his fist as tight as he could as the beating began. He tried his best to hold on to those two coins, this ticket to the future. He tried to keep them from finding out about it. He really, really tried.

  
  
  



End file.
